


The One You Feed

by Beguile



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: AU, Blackouts, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Horror, References to Past Drug Use, Typhoid Karen, Unhappy Ending, split personality, spoilers for season 1 and 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 12:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19273390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: The blackouts start after Kevin, so Karen finds excuses for them.AU.





	The One You Feed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [titC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/gifts).



> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Warnings: violence, reference to suicide, unhappy ending. 
> 
> titC prompted me a few months ago for a Karen-as-Typhoid fic, and while initially reluctant, I took to it like a fish to water. Special thanks to Dichotomy Studios for beta-ing!
> 
> The title refers to the old story about two wolves fighting inside you: one of hope and compassion, the other of cruelty and malice. Which one wins? The one you feed.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

* * *

 

               The blackouts start after Kevin, so Karen finds excuses for them. Withdrawal hits her hard; grief hits her harder. Being on a bus bound for New York with no sense of the time nor any memory of having purchased a ticket doesn’t faze her so much as feel like exactly the punishment she deserves.

               She drifts through her first few days in the city. One blink and she’s on the subway, staring at job ads in the paper. Another and she’s halfway through a latte in a coffee shop, a stranger’s name and number on a napkin. Karen starts keeping a list of to-dos in her pocket, and when things are added or crossed out or changed without her recollection, it doesn’t register. Nothing does. She rents a shitty room in a shitty building; she interviews for shitty jobs; she has shitty nights. Not remembering is a blessing.

               The fugue ends sharply and suddenly with a phone call: a woman tells her that she got the job. Karen says thanks and almost ends the call, but she rubs her eyes and asks, “Uh…who’s calling?”  
               The woman on the other line sighs. “Union Allied Construction,” she says. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Page.”

               Karen stares at the phone when the call disconnects, a chill running down her spine. She doesn’t remember interviewing for a job. She doesn’t even remember applying for one. “Shit.” She gets off her shitty bed and heads for her suitcase, praying she has something halfway respectable for her first day of work doing God knows what.

               The suitcase is no use. Everything is soiled, reeking of the week’s she spent blearily traversing the city. She looks down, wondering if she can risk wearing her current outfit again, only to be taken aback. The collared shirt she’s wearing, the black skirt, the nylons: they’re new. There’s a paper bag on the chair behind her that she’s never seen before either, and when Karen digs inside, she finds a collection of tops, skirts, and slacks, all with the tags attached. No receipt.

               She sinks back on the bed, chills running through her. She should be happy: a new job, a new wardrobe, a new start, a new life. But the haziness that swallowed her up for the past several weeks haunts her. She’s never felt grief like this before. Even after Mom, it was the drugs that accounted for her blackouts, her absence. Now, she’s clean, but her recovering brain seems worse for it.

* * *

                Karen commits to the job, and for weeks, it’s like she’s back to normal. She doesn’t cry herself to sleep (as much). She gets an apartment. She almost makes friends at work. She’s aware of every hour from the moment she wakes to the moment she falls asleep, and there are no more mysterious bags in her apartment. No more call-backs for things she doesn’t remember doing.

               She stays that way even after finding evidence of Union Allied’s money laundering. Asking Danny to drinks is her decision. She’s in full control of her faculties right up until that first sip. Then the dizziness sets in, and Karen has blacked out before she can panic.

               It’s like the call from Union Allied, waking up. Like getting hit with cold water. Everything comes into sharp, sudden, painful focus. The knife in her hand, the blood on her skin, the piercing dawn. Police kicking down the door barely register through her panic. It was drugs, Karen tells herself as they put cuffs on her. It had to have been drugs.

               The story persuades two lawyers: Nelson and Murdock, newly graduated. Karen feels foolish trusting them, but any representation is better than no representation. That they believe her helps. She isn’t sure she believes herself.

* * *

                Waking up to Clyde Farnum attempting to murder her is the scariest thing until she wakes up to find out what happened to Clyde Farnum’s face.

               “You were protecting yourself,” Murdock reassures her as he walks her towards the cab they’ve hailed. His grip on her arm is comforting, grounding, though Karen’s thoughts betray her constantly in trying to get away.

               She tries to tell him: “I clawed his –“  
  
               Nelson stops her right there. “No more, Miss Page. Not until we’re back at our offices.”  
  
               Karen takes a seat in the cab. She looks at her hands, the flecks of blood under her nails, to her fingers. Little pieces of Farnum that she clawed away.

               Or so she was told. Karen doesn’t remember.

* * *

                The blow to her head that she receives at her apartment, painful as it and the concussion that follows are, seems to knock some sense into her. Or maybe it’s the stability provided by Matt and Foggy. Karen’s blackouts go away. She focuses all of her energy on investigating Union Allied, and when Ben Urich takes her under his wing, she makes sure she remembers every second with him, checking and double-checking her memories for blank spots.

               Their pursuit of the truth leads them to Fisk’s mother, frail old thing in the nursing home. The way she speaks, as if no time has passed, it strikes a chord for Karen, whose experience of time seems about the same: gaps, leaps, grasping at straws. But now, with Ben, with Matt and Foggy, she’s so grateful that things are linear again, that she’s herself. That her fear isn’t hiding her from the world. That her fear is something she can carry with her into the darkness. That her fear is a part of her. It’s what makes her whole.

               Wesley’s attack comes at the perfect moment, right as she’s feeling complete. Karen rouses slowly to the table under her cheek, and when she sits up, there is Fisk’s right-hand man and a gun.

               She is tired. She is so tired of these assholes and their self-aggrandizing. The way they play with their prey. She grabs the gun off the table and turns it on Wesley, putting his face in front of the barrel.

               Her thoughts fizzle. The drugs, she thinks, blinking hard, but her grasp on reality is weakening. Karen feels like she’s being pulled back, like something else is taking her place. New strength enters her fingertips. They’re no longer her own. Her arms, too, they go pins and needles. Her heart rate plummets to a calm, cool, collected rhythm.

               And then she’s out.

               She comes back to herself in the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. Air heavy with steam. Mirror fogged. Hands clean.

               Karen claps a hand over her mouth to catch her sobs. She wracks her brain trying to remember, but she doesn’t remember a damn thing. Not what happened to Wesley, not how she got home. The things she does know for certain are the givens: that Wesley did not just let her walk out of there, and she didn’t leave him without killing him.

               She needs to call someone. Not Matt, not Foggy. Someone, _anyone_. She grabs her purse. A set of unfamiliar car keys greet her. Karen drops onto her bed in shock, staring at them. A series of no-s pour out of her mouth as she rushes for her front window. There, on the street. A silver car that she’s sure she’s never seen before, but one that tugs at the fringes of her memory with familiarity. Maybe it’s the trunk she was stuffed into. Or maybe it’s that the car belonged to James Wesley, but he’s dead now.

               Her hand shakes as she tries to dial, nearly dropping the phone out of her hand. Karen braces it against the wall when she hits send, then presses it so hard into her ear she can hear her heart pounding through her skull. He won’t answer, she tells herself. It’s too late, and it’s her number, but she just needs that hope for a voice on the other line, the suspension of her senses waiting for a broken silence. 

               The line connects. Karen nearly drops the damn phone in shock. There’s silence on the other side, but at least it’s not an endless ringing sound.

               “Dad,” she says shakily. “Dad, I-“

               He sighs; she stops, but that’s a mistake, because he’s more disappointed when he speaks. “What is it, Karen? What’d you do now?”  
  
               It’s not fair, but it is fair, and Karen takes it because it’s the least she deserves. Tears run freely down her cheeks. “Something’s wrong,” she says. “I think I-“ _killed a man_ “I think I’m sick.”  
  
               Another sigh. “Just couldn’t stay clean, could you.”

               “It’s not like that.” All the drugs she’s had have been administered to her. By force. “No, I think…I think something’s wrong with me. I can’t…I can’t remember things. I can’t…” The question forms on her tongue and there’s nowhere for it to go but into the phone. “Can I…” her voice goes quiet, goes small, as small as it can go, “Can I come home? Please? Just-“ she can hear him on the other line shuffling, the typical sound of a person trying to distance themselves, remind themselves that this is an addict talking. Karen begs. “Just until I see a doctor. Just until I figure this out. Please. I’m losing time. I’m –“

               She almost says, “Killing people.” Almost.

               Dad doesn’t hesitate. “They’ve got doctors everywhere.”

               Karen fights back another sob. “I just want to come home.”

               “This isn’t your home anymore.”

               Her knees start to buckle. Karen puts her back against the wall and sinks onto the floor, clutching the towel to her chest. She listens as her father sighs again and says goodnight, listens as the line goes dead, listens as the quiet of her apartment surrounds her.

* * *

                Karen dreams of Wilson Fisk in her apartment, and the terror that grips her is real, palpable, unbearable. But then it’s gone, replaced with something else, something like certainty, and suddenly her hands are on him, ripping at him. She puts him into a wall, smashes his head into the floor. Picks up a knife and stabs at him until he’s nothing but a bloody mess. When she washes herself off, she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror, and she smirks at herself, pride gleaming in her eyes.

               She raises a finger to her lips and shushes herself. This dream, the killing, the stone-cold certainty possessing her: it’s their little secret.

               Then Karen wakes up.

* * *

                James Wesley is found murdered.

               Karen takes the news as best as she can: by hiding behind work. She searches her place for a gun; there isn’t one. She’s hidden the car even if she hasn’t parted with the keys. As long as she tells no one, they’ll never know she was the last person to see him alive.

               The thought sustains her until she is alone. That’s when the terror grips her. Karen tries to remember. She tries to follow the pins and needles sensation through to the moment she pulled the trigger, but there’s nothing. Her mind is blank.

               It’s only when she sleeps that she starts seeing things: Fisk dead, Wesley dead, Todd dead, Foggy and Matt dead, and all the while, that smirking visage of her own face. Once, her own voice, menacing, “You think this is the first time I’ve held a gun before?” followed by a gunshot, then blackness again.

               She buys liquor for the first time since coming to the city and starts self-medicating, but the dreams come back, more visceral each time. Karen still feels the blood on her hands when she wakes.

               The only reprieve she gets is when she finds Matt at the office, tears in his eyes, admitting he can’t take another step. Karen embraces him, promising him all the things that she needs: that he isn’t alone, that he’s never been alone, that they will face this together. As she’s saying it, she’s feeling guilty. She’s let her own bullshit pull her away from people, and she can’t do that again. She holds Matt until he’s ready to go home, and then she calls a doctor, leaving a message on an answering machine to make an appointment.

               She wakes up to her phone ringing: not the doctor’s office. Ben Urich is dead.

* * *

               Karen stands at the funeral seething, hands tightening to fists in her pockets. She triple-dog dares her brain to try and slip away. She will pry her thoughts back inside herself, hold herself there. She’s in control now. Even her dreams disappear through what it feels like sheer force of her rage.

               A package arrives, no return address. Karen rips it open to find a painting inside: a white background flecked with blonde and blue streaks. There’s no note, no receipt, no nothing to indicate where it came from. Karen sighs, sliding the painting under her bed – out of sight, out of mind. Shopping for artwork during a blackout is the least of her concerns. 

* * *

 

               Fisk’s arrest is joyous. Righteously satisfying. And things afterwards are wonderful too. She stops dreaming. Waking up to a job at Nelson & Murdock, to hard work, to friends, Karen is convinced that her problems are over. She puts off the appointment with the doctor, thinking nothing of it. Thinks nothing of the fact that James Wesley is dead or that Ben is dead or that she still doesn’t remember. Even when Grotto needs an escort to the hospital, when she’s twenty feet from a nurse’s desk and a referral to a psychiatrist, Karen doesn’t think of it.

               Then the one-man army shows up. The sawed-off shotgun blasts through the door, into the walls, and Karen starts to feel that pins-and-needles sensation in her forearm as she drags Grotto down the hall. She throws him into the stairwell, and instead of following him, her feet root to the spot.

               Chill rushes through her. The churning thoughts, the racing blood, it all solidifies into certainty, horrifying certainty, that she can handle this. Karen tries to pull herself out of the state, but she’s suddenly in the backseat of her own thoughts. She feels her hands ball into fists, feels her muscles tense, feels that smirk creep across her face.

               Everything goes black.

* * *

                She blinks and finds a penlight passing in front of her eyes. Foggy’s hand is on one of her shoulders. He and Matt are flanking the doctor checking her over, and she’s struck that this is the first time she’s ever seen them from the outside. Usually, their defence attorney tactics are charming, somehow different from the others. But now it’s obnoxious and suffocating and scary. Karen doesn’t need a defence.

               “Karen?” Matt asks, briefly dropping his stone-faced lawyer façade for concern.

               “Yeah,” she replies. “I’m here.”  
  
               The doctor runs through a couple questions with her to make sure she’s actually there. “I think I should keep her overnight,” he says, “For observation.”  
  
               “We’ll let her decide that,” Matt says. “Thank you, Doctor.”  
  
               Karen waits until they’re alone before asking, “What happened? Where’s Grotto? Is he okay?”  
  
               “Yeah, Grotto’s fine. They have him under guard,” Matt replies.

               “And the man. The shooter.”

               “They have him under guard too.”  
  
               Karen breathes a sigh of relief. She runs her hands through her hair, self-soothing, trying to get her heartrate back where it belongs. “What, uh…what happened?”  
  
               The silence in the room is deafening. Foggy shoots a look over at Matt. “What do you remember happening?”  
  
               “I had just…pushed Grotto into the stairwell. And then…” she shrugs, searching Matt and Foggy’s faces for help. Matt’s face is infuriatingly blank; Foggy’s is sympathetic but also horrified. “What? What is it?”  
  
               “You…” Matt starts, but he clearly doesn’t want to say.

               Foggy takes over: “You attacked the guy. Knocked him out of the stairwell clean into a wall.”

               Karen waits for the other shoe to drop, for one of them to tell her it’s a lie. Neither of them do. Instead, Foggy continues. “You were…amazing, Karen. Terrifying, but amazing.”

               “I don’t remember,” she says again. And she doesn’t.

               “It’s not surprising,” Matt says gently. “The man had a gun, Karen. He almost killed you and Grotto.”

               “But I don’t remember,” she says it again. And that feels like it should be enough, but Foggy and Matt are just looking at her sadly, sympathetically. Like it’s just this one time instead of every time something bad happens.

               “You want to go home?” Foggy asks. He pats her on the shoulder, reading an answer from her without being told one. “Let’s get you home.”  
               Matt takes her by the other arm as if he needs her to lead. Karen falls in pace with Foggy. They’re journey to the elevator takes them past a short hallway to a private room, one under guard.

               “Is that him?” Karen asks.

               “Yeah,” Foggy says. “That’s him.”     

               “Let’s go, Karen,” Matt urges.

               She’s already walking towards it. “I want to see.”

               “No, you don’t.”

               “Yeah,” she pulls herself away, “I do.”  
  
               The guards are reluctant, but with the help of her attorneys, Karen’s allowed to see. The guy is a mess. Cuts on his face, busted nose, two black eyes. Bandages visible around his upper chest. Karen picks up the chart from the bed and starts flipping through it, eyes blurring out at the sight of the damage. She feels herself withdrawing from the room, heading for the backseat, and the sensation only stops when she puts the chart down and she leaves the room.

* * *

                Foggy and Matt want to stay, and Karen lets them. She shuts herself in the bedroom under the pretense of going to sleep, but she stays awake, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to contort her face into the smirk she sees in her dreams.

               “Who are you?” she asks, deadly serious, but when she hears herself, how crazy she sounds, she scoffs. “Who am I?”

               She leans back, closes her eyes, tries to feel her way around inside her thoughts back to that pins-and-needles disassociation. But it doesn’t come. She can’t will it. Seems like whatever it is gets triggered by panic, by threat. Whatever it is gets triggered to protect, and when it does, it gouges men’s eyes out of their sockets. It kills them.

* * *

               Matt tries to talk to her about it. Karen deflects, insisting it’s stress or shock or a combination of the two. She does make an appointment with a psychologist though, wanting to investigate this.

               She goes to sleep. Wakes up the next morning with a splitting headache, mouth thick and gummy and sour from alcohol. Light piercing her eyes. She fumbles for her phone to check the time. It’s nearly noon, but there are no missing calls from Foggy or Matt. No frantic text messages asking where she is. Not even a message from the psychologist’s office asking where she is.

               Karen phones there first, hoping she can save being charged a fee for the appointment. She apologizes profusely to the secretary who, after a bewildered pause, says that she’s going to patch Karen through to the psychologist. Karen gives the same speech over again, but the answer this time is more horrifying that being transferred. “I don’t understand,” the psychologist says. “You were here for our appointment yesterday.”

               The shock of it brings no sense of disassociation. Karen’s firmly rooted in her own body as she pulls the phone away from her ear. The date on-screen has to be a lie. It’s been a day. She’s missed a whole day.

               She puts the phone back to her ear. The psychologist is asking if she’s alright, if she really doesn’t remember. Karen can’t handle the questions. “I’ll have to call you back.” She hangs up. The phone rings almost immediately. She turns the ringer off. She starts working through her apps, starting with text messages and her call log. There are conversations with Foggy and Matt from last night, both of them hoping she has a good night’s sleep (Matt’s sounds softer than Foggy’s in her mind), and her messages, cheery and loving in return. Especially to Matt, who earned an XOXO in his chat.

               Adrenaline starts to really spike when she checks her photos. Images taken at clubs that she’s never been to, snuggling up to Matt in ways she never has before. Head on his shoulder, drunken smile on her face, an almost-kiss to his cheek. She’s temporarily soothed by a photo of her and Matt and Foggy right up until the moment she doesn’t remember it being taken, nor the situation they were in. The three of them had lunch yesterday apparently, right after her appointment. There are pictures of that, too. The three of them smiling together over a sweet bistro meal that they can’t afford, but one that, according to her online banking statements, she paid for.

               She slams the phone onto the nightstand. “Who are you?” Karen demands. Of herself. She slaps her hands against the edge of the mattress, raising her blood pressure. Her fear climbs into that sweet spot where she should start becoming her own afterthought, but it’s like waiting on the line for someone to pick up. Whoever went to the psychologist’s office yesterday isn’t answering. They’re pretending they don’t exist after taking Karen on a ride for a full day.

               Karen isn’t having it. She moves, forcing her heartrate to climb. Her fingers tingle; her arms start to fizzle. She rushes to the bathroom mirror. “Who?” she asks.

               A syrupy warmth starts to come over her as she drifts back, but Karen holds on tight to the image in the mirror, finally seeing it shift out of puffy, hungover hysteria into self-assured, sinister madness, complete with that cut of a smirk.

               It’s gone a second later. Karen’s gripping her sink, blood rushing hot and cold through her body. Torn between extremes just like she is.

               “What do you want?” she begs, fighting tears.

               No matter how hard she tries to work herself up, Karen can’t bring the other-her back. 

* * *

 

               Karen learns the shooter from the hospital is named Frank Castle when Foggy calls to tell her that he’s escaped.

               “Don’t go home,” Foggy says. “We’ve sent Brett to come get you.”

               “Alright,” Karen replies. She hangs up before Foggy can say more, and she continues walking the short distance back to her apartment.

               She tries to act normal, coming through her front door. Tries to keep her heart at a comfortable rhythm until just the right moment. But she gets the lights on and finds Frank Castle waiting at her kitchen table, and it’s a miracle she doesn’t phase out right then and there.

               He’s wearing a police officer’s uniform. He’s got a gun.

               “Take a seat, Ms. Page,” he says, gesturing to the chair in front of him.

               The familiarity calms her. This is exactly what happened with Wesley and look how that turned out for him.

               That the thought doesn’t sound like her only makes it harder for Karen to keep a straight face.

               Frank watches her, the bruises around both his eye lending to the intensity of his stare.

               Karen breaks the silence: “This isn’t the first time I’ve had a gun –“  
  
               He cuts her off. “Your bosses – Nelson and Murdock: do they know?”  
  
               “Do they know what?”  
  
               “About you: who you really are, what you really do.”

               She puts on a brave face, convincing herself she doesn’t need protection. “They know I kicked your ass at the hospital.”  
  
               Frank laughs, his eyes gleaming. “Bet they believed your little sob story, too. About you not remembering that.”

               She doesn’t reply. What the hell can she say? He isn’t going to believe her.  
  
               He keeps looking at her, sizing her up. “You know who I am? What I do?”

               “I know you kill people.”  
  
               “Damn right I do. Killed a lot of people in a lot of places. Takes more than a secretary to lay me flat.”  
  
               “Apparently not.”  
  
               He taps the handle of the gun against the table, reminding her it’s there. Karen spares a glance for it, then goes back to looking Frank in the eye. “Who do you think I am?”

               “You’re damn hard to find, that’s one thing.”  
  
               “I’m a secretary for a law firm.”  
  
               Another laugh. “You’re good. You’re really good. I can see why Nelson and Murdock believe you.”  
  
               Karen lets her heartbeat go a little faster. “You should go.”  
  
               “Or what? You gonna do what you did at the hospital?”  
  
               She doesn’t respond. She looks at the gun, the one she’s going to use to kill him if he doesn’t get the hell out of the apartment right now.

               Her hands tingle in anticipation.

               Frank leans towards her, putting the gun well within her reach. “Do it.”  
  
               The blackness is coming over her.

               “Do it,” Frank says again.

               Karen feels herself reaching. She shoots up, out of her seat, and gets the hell away from him.

               “Ah, hell-“  
  
               “Get out,” Karen says, pointing towards her door. “Get the hell out. Now.”

               Briefly, Frank considers the gun in his hand. Without taking his eyes off her, he reaches into his pocket. He tosses a crumpled mess of papers to her side of the table. “GET OUT!” Karen shouts again, grateful when he rises from the table and heads toward the door.

               Fighting the urge to shift enrages her more than just letting it happen. The cops would believe that it was self-defence. They’d be on her side given what this guy’s done. She’s on her side. Men like Frank Castle don’t get to go around killing people.

               But neither does she. And no matter how hard the other-her fights, Karen can’t let the other half of her win. No, Frank Castle can walk away from this one.

               She fights back a sob. Her mind is going blank, her vision’s going gray, but she picks up the papers that Castle’s left. The writing is messy without tears blurring her vision. Karen blinks and focuses, sliding back inside herself in an effort to read them through.

               “Shit,” she says.

* * *

                “Good morning, Miss Walker!” the doorman says cheerily as he welcomes Karen to the building. “Bit of a surprise seeing you here so early in the day.”  
  
               “Uh…” Karen isn’t sure how to act. She tries to harden her expression the way her dream-self does, but the whole performance seems forced. Besides, she has work to do. “Um, this is embarrassing, but I…” she shrugs, “I forgot my keys.”  
  
               “The front desk’ll get you sorted out.”

               The front desk does, and Karen takes the spare set of keys to a penthouse apartment. Sparsely but exquisitely decorated. She begins combing the place for clues, trying to stay detached, but it’s hard when everything seems so fresh, so well-used. The fridge is stocked with perishables as if someone actually lives here. The closet is filled with expensive clothing, black and navy blazers with matching skirts and slacks. The shoes in the closet have dirt on the soles. A stash of debit and credit cards are in the Louis Vuitton purse on the kitchen counter.

               There is one decoration in the whole apartment: a painting. Black canvas with streaks of blue and indigo, a dark twin to the painting she received after Ben was killed. It stands out to her. Why keep everything else a secret but send the painting? Karen doesn’t know the answer, but she knows she doesn’t like it.

               The locked safe at the back of the closet is an exercise in futility. Frank’s notes don’t have the combination. Karen leaves before a panic attack brings the other-her out and spoils the rest of her investigation.

               She heads to the bank next. The debit gives her access to an account with numerous transactions, mostly credits, all in massive sums. She traces every deposit to dummy corporation after dummy corporation, ending up at dead ends. Money laundering schemes, all of them good enough that she doesn’t know who dirtied the cash in the first place.

               Karen opens a new account. She transfers the money into it. Then she has the manager put a lock on the account so she can’t make any withdrawals. She cuts up the debit and credit cards, cutting her other off, wondering, all the while, when the hell she has time to live a double life.

               That night, as usual, she doesn’t dream.

* * *

                Her apartment is trashed the next morning: broken dishes and furniture scattered through the rooms. Karen’s hands and feet are chapped and bleeding. There are missed calls on her phone, texts from Foggy and Matt asking where she is, that she needs to call them right away. Karen hazards a call to Foggy; his anger is less guilt-inducing than Matt’s.

               “We’ve been robbed,” Foggy says.

               Karen drops her head into her hand. “When? How?”

               “Last night. Our accounts were emptied. And someone trashed our office.”

               She hates having to say this: “There are security cameras –“

               “Whoever it was trashed those too.”  
  
               Karen considers the cuts on her hands. “I’ll be right there.” Foggy all but hangs up on her. She barely notices, too busy thinking about how stupid she’s been. Not dreaming since Ben died: it’s not a blessing. It’s her other.

               The painting is out from under the bed, leaning against the far wall, staring at Karen. The only thing in her apartment that isn’t destroyed.

               It’s as close to a message as she is going to get.

* * *

                Before they get a chance to investigate their robbery, Frank Castle is captured again by police, this time after a run-in with the remaining members of the Irish Mob.

               Karen comes to the office bearing coffees. The gesture lets her hide her mangled hands. She urges Matt and Foggy to take Frank’s case, eventually leveraging them on the basis of them having _nothing_ left to lose. “He’s probably the one who wrecked our office,” Foggy says, but even he relents and joins them on the trip to Metro General.

               Frank looks worse than what she did to him. He never takes his eyes off her. Says enough to accept them as his lawyers, then he dismisses Matt and Foggy for her and only her.

               “You know,” he says.

               “Yeah, I know,” Karen replies. “How did you?”

               “The money going into your account, Mary’s account. You know where it comes from?”  
  
               Karen shakes her head. “Money laundering operations.”  
  
               Frank nods. “From a bunch of different places.”

               “For what?”

               “Not for pushing papers and taking dictation, that’s for sure.”  
  
               Karen wraps her hands into fists, letting the skin strain against her cuts. James Wesley. That’s the only person her other has killed: James Wesley. And she doesn’t remember doing it or trashing her apartment or opening bank accounts of having another life. She doesn’t remember any of it.

               “What do I do?” she asks. “I can’t…I can’t stop. She…I…” Karen closes her eyes, counts to ten, but the pronouns don’t make any more sense than they did before. This isn’t her, but it is her.

               “All the more reason to end it.”

               “What?”

               Frank’s gaze is steady, honest. Got all the stone-cold certainty of Mary but this warmth about him, inviting her to the conclusion he’s already drawn. “Only way to stop her is to –“  
  
               Karen doesn’t listen. She grabs her purse and heads for the door, her heart lodged firmly in her throat.

               “You end this, Page.”

               The door opens in front of her.

               “You end this before I have to.”   
  
               Karen walks, and she doesn’t stop walking until she’s hit the main floor, Foggy and Matt struggling to keep up with her.

* * *

               She lets herself back into Mary Walker’s apartment that night. She puts a piece of paper on the counter and writes, “What do you want?” at the top of the page.

               Then she opens a bottle of wine, drinks, and waits.

               She blinks, vision bleary from liquor, and there’s a message waiting for her. Written in different handwriting, like someone else came into the apartment. “What do you want?” The emphatic underline suggests something that Karen can’t decipher.

               “I want you to go away,” Karen writes. She pours herself another glass of wine and retreats to the couch.

               She wakes up at the counter. Unpeeling herself from the note, she finds a response:

               “PROVE IT.”

               Underneath the words is a crudely drawn arrow pointing left. Karen follows it towards a handgun lying on the edge of the counter, a box of ammo beside it.

               She throws the gun across the apartment.  

* * *

                The blackouts intensify after that. Karen’s struck by them at all hours of the day. Most of the time, they’re benign, intended to do nothing more than freak her out. But Mary isn’t content sticking to psychological warfare. Karen wakes up on buses headed out of town. She comes to in buildings that she’s never been to, neighbourhoods she’s never seen, sometimes in mid-conversation with people who have just hired her to do a job.

               Karen finds herself in the back of a cab one of these times, Super Max in the rear-view mirror. A wad of paper crumpled in her hand that just says, “Frank will see you soon,” in Mary’s characteristic script.

               She starts handcuffing herself to her bed only to wake up cuffed to Mary’s bed across town. She gets a prescription for sleeping pills, but the second they wear off, Mary gets in the driver’s seat and three days go missing. A gun appears in Karen’s apartment, seven rounds discharged. There’s blood on her hands and her clothing. When she tries to call the police, another day vanishes. News reports of people dying, their bodies found horribly mutilated.

               Karen tries getting herself out of town, but the second she buys a ticket, the instant she tells a cab driver, “Take me anywhere,” the moment that she decides to do anything except live her life as usual, Mary comes in, takes over, puts her back on track. She tries to commit herself to an institution, and while filling out the intake form, she blinks to find a message written on her arm: “I will kill everyone in this building if you don’t leave now.”

               She keeps hoping that someone will notice, but Matt is aloof, preoccupied with some other case. Foggy is stressed the hell out. Even the man in the mask, the Daredevil, the guy who saved her once, never seems to cross paths with Mary Walker. And that’s probably a good thing, because Mary Walker could probably rip the devil apart. She tore through Frank like he was nothing.

               She could probably tear through just about anybody.

               Karen can’t believe she didn’t think of it before.

* * *

                Frank Castle escapes from Super Max.

               Good, let him. Karen has no intention of meeting him face-to-face. Instead, she borrows some of Mary’s clothes, gets into the driver’s seat of James Wesley’s car, and goes to the one place Frank Castle won’t.  

               Visiting hours are almost over at Super Max. Karen only knows one inmate, so she puts in a Hail Mary request to see him. Her prayers are answered, and she’s taken to a concrete room, a steel table in the centre, Wilson Fisk seated on the far side.

               Karen sinks into the chair across from him. Her heartbeat climbs. She got this far in her planning, and now she’s in the prison, surrounded by guards, face-to-face with Wilson Fisk. The one place where she’s in control because there’s no way for Mary to back out without getting them killed or arrested.

               She almost smiles when she says it: “I killed James Wesley.”  
  
               Fisk doesn’t react. He gives her a long, steady stare like a predator considering prey, but then he eases back in his chair and says, “I know.”

               The wind goes out of her sails. Karen can’t hide her disappointment. “You know?”  
  
               “Yes, I know,” Fisk says. “You told me. Or, rather, Mary told me.”

               The cold crush of fear floods her veins, but Karen is left to face the awful truth herself. “And you didn’t do anything about that? I killed your best friend.”

               Fisk nods. “You did. But you killed Ben Urich as well.”

               Tears spring into Karen’s eyes. Through gritted teeth: “You killed Ben Urich.”  
  
               “I did not,” Fisk replies. “I wish I had, given what you did to Wesley, but when I learned it was you, I felt avenged.”

               “I didn’t do it.”  
  
               Fisk’s only response is to sit there, levelling his stare at her. Karen wants to believe that his silence is damning, but the longer it lasts, the more she realizes that the dreams stopped when Ben died. The painting arrived after Ben died. Fisk no longer scared her after Ben died. The money in Mary’s accounts, the shell corporations, the killings, all that started up after Ben died.

               “I’ve been working for you,” Karen admits.

               “Yes. And you’ve been doing very well. It’s been a great comfort, being locked up in here, knowing you’re out there serving me. Just as I’m sure it has been a comfort to you, to Mary, to receive fair compensation and reward for your efforts.”  

               Karen springs out of the chair. Fisk rises from his in response, a gentleman in prison orange.

               “It’s always a pleasure, Miss Walker,” Fisk says.

               She charges at him. Fisk stands there, his arms up in front, as she lashes out at him. “Come and get me,” Karen begs. “Come and get me!” But neither Mary nor Fisk do anything. One hums in the dark recesses of Karen’s mind, waiting; the other endures her pithy attempts at assault before a prison guard comes and carries her away.

* * *

                Foggy and Matt are furious. “Lucky he’s not pressing charges,” one of them says. Karen doesn’t pay attention to which one. She leaves the office during their tirade against her, stumbling down the street in Mary’s painful heels. Nowhere to go where Mary won’t reach her, nothing to do that Mary can’t stop.

               She returns home and lays on the bed, quieting herself. Giving Mary free reign seems like the right idea, but that night, she dreams for the first time in weeks of Ben, and what should be a blessing feels like a punishment. Penance for the hell she’s raised without even being aware of it.

               Matt comes by the following morning. He’s gentle despite himself, looking about as defeated as he did that night so long ago when he admitted he couldn’t be alone. Karen’s first words to him are still, “I think you should go.” But he says he needs to tell her something and hands her a paper bag.

               Inside is the Daredevil mask.

               He tells her things: sweet, soft things, about how he wanted to protect her and wanted to protect the city, but that he’s sorry for not telling her. Karen barely hears him. Her fingers feel cold and her mind feels blank, almost like Mary’s about to come out, but it’s just her, terrified and hurt, staring into the face of the Devil she wished would save her and knowing there is no help coming. There is nothing left to hope for.

               Matt goes quiet. Karen gives him a few seconds before asking, “Are you done?”

               “Yeah,” Matt replies.

               “Good,” she says, shoving the mask back into the bag and thrusting it back at him. “Get the hell out.”

               He does. 

* * *

 

               Karen showers. She has no sobs left in her, no tears left to cry, and the water falling over her feels like a release. She emerges in a cloud of steam and swipes condensation off the mirror to reveal her face, pale and sunken. The face that Ben saw before he died, that so many people have seen as she ripped them apart. The face that her friends couldn’t read but Frank Castle could.

               She sighs: Frank Castle. He’s coming for her. And maybe that’s a good thing, for both of them. Maybe it would be best to let him do what he does. Mary sure as hell isn’t going to let Karen do it.

               Karen straightens a little, her lips pursing. The thought what Frank Castle does strikes a chord in her. Matt and Frank and Fisk all do what they do. They’re violent and they’re lawless and they’re powerful, and she’s here buying them coffees or cowering in fear or working for them, when all she really wants to do, all she _really wants to do_ …

               She stares into the mirror, into her own eyes. “I don’t know if you can hear me,” she says.

               Her hands tingle. Her thoughts fizzle. Mary hears her loud and clear.

               Karen smirks.  

* * *

 

Happy Reading!

              


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